South Africa gets its own Google doodle

A Google doodle done for the South African elections taking place on 7 May 2014.
Photo: Google

JOHANNESBURG - South Africa got its own Google Doodle to mark its fifth democratic elections on Wednesday.

A ballot box in the colours of the SA flag formed the centre of the doodle with the individual letters of the internet search engine's name picking up colours of the flag.

Clicking on the doodle led to links for election day news, the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC), and to a Wikipedia collaboration explaining the elections and the composition of South Africa's Parliament.

The idea for the Google doodle, according to the company, started before the company was incorporated when founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin adapted the logo with a picture of a stick figure in the middle to indicate that they were out of office attending the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert in the US.

Google, which is younger than SA's first democratic government, now has a team of doodlers and engineers dedicated to designing doodles for special occasions, including individual users' birthdays.

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